What was the business problem(s) that your organization / project was facing, and why did you choose a digital adoption strategy to help you solve it?
United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), partners with thousands of independent mortgage brokers. We proactively deliver innovative technology, elite client service and the fastest closing process possible to help our brokers grow their businesses. That means we are quick to implement feedback. While we do communicate technology and process enhancements through multiple channels, we realize that people are often overloaded with information and they can only retain so much. So we put ourselves in their shoes. How do we help educate our clients on technology and system enhancements when it impacts them the most? We determined that it made the most sense to provide this information when they were in the part of the system that has a new feature or process.
How did you use WalkMe among other strategies to address your challenges?
NUMBERS: In 2019, we focused on WalkMe to augment our learning management system. This significantly increased the number of computer-based trainings (CBT) and online tutorials available to our 5300+ team members. We’ve put CBT’s at our team members’ fingertips and greatly reduced training room/space usage at our headquarters (24% room capacity increase). WalkMe has also provided an online tool for client and offsite training and development, which has saved us $543,002 in travel cost year-to-date. The program has significantly helped our clients as well – the tutorials on importing loans have greatly reduced the number of “help calls” our welcome associates receive each day (12% decrease on import assistance calls). DETAILS: One of our six company pillars is “Continuous Improvement is Essential for our Long-Term Success”. We have built a team of 140+ dedicated full-time trainers and coaches to support this pillar. In addition to the WalkMe University, our Training Team created multiple instructor-led programs that our WalkMe Builders are required to complete. Additionally, we coordinated efforts with our 600+ team member IT Team to identify when new features are released. Through this partnership, we are able to reduce the IT effort that would be spent on hard coded guided tutorials and allow one of the 50+ WalkMe Builders to work with the business and the IT Business Partnership Team to plan, build and test WalkMe’s that meet the needs of the project.
How does your digital adoption strategy, especially in regards to WalkMe, impact or benefit your end-users?
When you are moving as fast as we do and have hundreds of thousands of dreams of home ownership depending on you, it’s critical that our clients are comfortable and confident when navigating our technology. To create that confidence, we have leveraged WalkMe to educate our internal and external clients through tell, show, and do. When our clients are on a screen that has a new feature, we leverage WalkMe to TELL them about the change, SHOW the change, and finally, they DO through guided steps. Often, our clients work with multiple lenders, that means they have to know how to use multiple systems. Knowing how to navigate multiple systems in addition to clients calling, emailing, texting or just dropping by can be overwhelming. A new process they did yesterday, is now forgotten, but that’s not acceptable. To ensure our clients have the support they need when it comes to our technology, we leverage the “Need Help” menu to provide the Smart Walk-Through’s as needed.
How does your digital adoption strategy, especially in regards to WalkMe, impact or benefit your team?
Through our WalkMe implementation, our content developers have reduced the creation and maintenance of “How To” job aids. Instead, they are leveraging WalkMe to create guided tutorials that allow end users to learn as needed. Compared to reviewing, updating and publishing a “How To” document, updating a WalkMe is a fast and easy process that can benefit thousands of users in just minutes. Additionally, our IT teams no longer have to include the creation and maintenance of the hard coded guided tutorials in their sprint planning. Through the IT/Builder partnership, we are able to develop and deploy enhancements at a quicker rate.
How has your digital adoption strategy, especially in regards to WalkMe, helped your organization better achieve its mission goals / values?
In addition to other training resources, WalkMe has helped us increase the number of computer-based training’s (CBT) offered to our team members and clients from 1,420 in 2018 to 4,807 in 2019. The creation of our blended CBT platform has resulted in a better training blend rate and kept our production team members on the floor more and in the classroom less. Lastly, our operational efficiency rating has improved (frequency of delivery/team member efficiency) by 14% in production areas of the company (Sales, Operations, I.T., and Underwriting).
How has the success of your digital adoption strategy helped to change the perceptions or attitudes of your stakeholders?
It took a while for our stakeholders to see the value WalkMe as it related to our technology. Initially, we had one person doing it all. Once clients and team members started talking about the great guided tutorials, they started to pay more attention. They went from having a “ho hum” perception to consistently requesting a WalkMe to help guide users, solve inefficiencies, check forms, provide messaging for system maintenance and countless others. We’ve even had to have conversations about WalkMe not being a solution for everything!
More about United Wholesale Mortgage
Headquartered in Pontiac, MI, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) is the #1 wholesale lender in the nation five years in a row, providing state-of-the-art technology and unrivaled client service. Operating under parent company United Shore, UWM underwrites and provides closing documentation for residential mortgage loans. Our exceptional teamwork and focus on delivering innovative mortgage solutions are driving our ongoing growth and leadership position as the foremost advocate for mortgage brokers.
